


parallels (i see our tragedy in your eyes)

by makemelovely



Category: Boy Meets World, Girl Meets World
Genre: Angst, Boys In Love, Character Study, F/F, F/M, History Repeats, Lesbian Maya Hart, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Multiple, Parallels, Pining Maya Hart, Settling, Slaughterhouse-Five, Sorta kinda, Tragic Romance, cory sees him and shawn in riley and maya, in love with riley maya hart, young and naive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-20 03:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12424053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makemelovely/pseuds/makemelovely
Summary: Cory sees what Riley doesn't. He sees the want in Maya's eyes that remind him so painfully of Shawn. Shawn who kissed him and promised a forever they didn't get. It's hard to see their lives playing out in front of him all over again but he sucks it up because his daughter will need him. He's sure of it.





	parallels (i see our tragedy in your eyes)

Cory's heart drops to the floor when he sees the gleam in Maya's eyes. She is looking at his daughter with a terrible certainty that causes his soul to ache. Her eyes are overflowing with brokenness and want. It's what he used to see in Shawn's eyes.

He doesn't want to think about that though so instead he focuses on how Riley is looking at Lucas Friar from Texas. She's looking at him with stars, lazy mornings, a happy ending, a future.

(it's everything he wanted with Shawn but not like this. not like this.)

*

Shawn loves Riley, he really does. He just doesn't love what she represents. She represents something he never really had. A future with Cory. That's what he wanted for the longest time. A life with the boy he loved. Loves. Shawn isn't sure anymore.

"Are you even listening?" Riley asks him, turning hurt baby deer eyes on him.

He can't even answer. She turns away, slurping on her strawberry milkshake with shaking hands.

Maya stares at her before leaning over to whisper in Shawn's ear. "I wasn't listening either." Shawn turns to look at her, blue eyes guilty and broken. "She only ever talks about Lucas these days and I get tired of hearing it." Maya shrugs, twisting a stand of blonde hair between her fingers.

"Cory did that too." Shawn adds, nodding at her surprised look. "With Topanga."

"What did you do?" Maya asks, eager for a way to get over this. Whatever this is. The weird mixture of longing and love that wars in her heart. She's tired of pining for a girl waiting for her Prince Charming.

Shawn blinks, a weariness weighing his skin down that he hasn't felt in years. "I found Angela." He tells her, hates his answer when the sudden hopeful light dies out of her eyes.

"Oh."

"Oh." Shawn echoes. He finishes his vanilla shake, watches Maya finish her vanilla shake, waits on Riley to stop pouting.

He feels a little like Billy in Slaughterhouse Five.

Stuck in time.

*

So it goes.

*

Riley's fingers catch Maya's jacket, pulling her closer to twine their fingers together. "You are my extraordinary story." Riley tells her, voice aching with sincerity and dark eyes serious.

Topanga watches, feels a bit like she can't breathe. There is something heavy lodged in her throat, memories flashing in her mind and colliding with the present. She is watching history repeat itself. A wholesome kid in love with their brooding, broken best friend. A love interest is lurking somewhere in the backs of their minds, blissfully ignorant or painfully aware. One or the other.

You can't have both.

Maya moves forward, tucking a strand of brown hair behind Riley's ear. Her eyes are wide and sad. It's tragic, Topanga thinks. Shakespeare must have wrote a story about this. A tragedy, a love story, a comedy. Their story is something to be swapped and shared. Something passed on. "Okay." Maya says, neither an affirmative or a negative.

"Okay." Riley nods, beaming. Tears slide down her cheeks and relief is washed across her face. It hurts to look at.

Maybe they've passed it down genetically. Maybe it's something in their genes. In their blood. In their DNA.

*

Shawn smiles, a boyish grin sliding across pink lips. "You're my best friend." He tells Cory. My lover, my confidant, my heart.

My everything.

Cory smiles back, accepting Shawn's terrible truth with innocent eyes and a light heart.

He doesn't say it but he thinks it. I love you, Cory thinks and he means it.

*

"I do." Blonde hair, blue eyes.

"I do." Brown hair, brown eyes.

Which generation is it? Is it Cory and Topanga, disillusioned and naïve? Do they believe this is everything they've ever wanted?

Or is it Lucas and Riley, hopeful and a little desperate? Do they walk away with genuine smiles but an incomprehensible heavy feeling in their chests?

Or is it both? Does history repeat itself? Or do they learn from their mistakes?

Which is it?

Past or present?

*

"We have our whole lives ahead of us, Cor. Don't worry about us. You and me, always." Shawn promises, tracing kisses against Cory's chest.

What did they say about famous last words?

*

Cory sat blankly at the kitchen table, his skin pale as if he's recently seen a ghost. "You knew?" He whispered.

Topanga laughs, sharp and bitter. "Of course I knew. I loved you, Cory. I knew everything about you." Tears pour down her cheeks, desperate and terrible.

"Loved?" He asks, meeting her eyes. His eyes are blank and dark, endless pools of darkness.

Topanga shrugs, unable to look away. "Loved, loves. It's all the same Cory. I can't not love you even when I wish I could." She stands and moves to the door. "I'm going to go to work." Riley is at Maya's, Auggie is at Ava's, and Topanga needs to work.

She shuts the door and Cory doesn't dare move, doesn't dare breathe.

"I loved you even then." He finally says to the empty apartment.

*

It's funny. The way they are their kids. The way Maya settles for Zay like Shawn settles for Katy. The way the perfect family ends up the same. Cory and Topanga, Riley and Lucas. Love is love is love. Except that's not quite right. Except it kind of is.


End file.
